Lost Without My Boswell
by March Hare
Summary: Another trifling monograph from the March Hare. Is Dr. Watson really the fool that Hollywood makes him out to be, or is he an intelligent, valued partner to Holmes? The answer lies within...


Hey, gang! Hare here, with this trifling monograph. Remember that college essay I said I had to write? Well, this is it! (I LOVE open topics!!) I just turned it in today, so I'm not sure how it will be received, but for a five page research paper, I think I did a damn good job! When you review, give me a letter grade from A to F so we can stack it up against the one my professor will give me!  
  
Enjoy!  
  
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"Lost Without My Boswell": The Importance of Dr. John H. Watson in the Holmesian Canon  
  
By March Hare, the Mad  
  
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Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, their names are mutually inclusive. Speak of one, and you automatically include the other. One can scarcely picture the tall, ascetic form of the Great Detective without also conjuring up the slightly shorter and heavier cast of his faithful "Boswell." Yet, throughout the years, Dr. Watson and his role have slowly been denigrated from friend and partner to comic relief, devolving him into a cardboard cutout, his stupidity making Holmes look smarter. However, a serious study of the Canon, the original writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, reveals exactly the opposite. Dr. John H. Watson was not only an intelligent man in his own right, but was also a valued partner to the brilliant sleuth.  
  
One of the clearest defenses of Dr. Watson's aptitude lies in his scholastic history. In the opening line of A Study in Scarlet, the Watson- as-Narrator informs us, "In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon." (Doyle, STUD, 83) Through additional research, eminent Sherlockian scholar William S. Baring-Gould, late of the Baker Street Irregulars of New York City, had discovered that Watson had also graduated from Wellington College before enrolling in the University of London. (31) Obviously, a man graduated from three of the higher schools, as well as becoming a successful surgeon relatively early in life, could hardly be regarded as a fool.  
  
Further proofs are found in Watson's writings, in the Canon itself. With the voice of Watson-as-Narrator, the most wonderful and evocative descriptions are employed. The Victorian public was bereft of the modern- day television screen and cinema projection. They had only words, and Watson's words are wonderful. "It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds from the routine of life, and to recognise [sic] the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilization, like untamed beasts in a cage." (PIPS, 329) It is this passage and others like it, with their clear and untainted imagery, which has built Dr. Watson's international fame. It remains apparent that no idiot could be capable of such poetic and artful expression.  
  
Finally, perhaps the most telling evidence is betrayed by the words of the Sherlock Holmes himself. Holmes had never viewed Watson as an inferior or beneath him; on the contrary, he often chided the doctor for being too humble! At the opening of The Hound of the Baskervilles, we read, " 'Really, Watson, you excel yourself!' said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. 'I am bound to say that in all of the accounts which you have been so good as to give my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities.' " (HOUN, 773) And again, in The Adventure of the Speckled Band, there is this bit of dialogue between the detective and the doctor:  
  
H: "I really have some scruples as to taking you [to the Roylott house] tonight. There is a distinct element of danger."  
  
W: "Can I be of assistance?"  
  
H: "Your presence might be invaluable."  
  
W: "Then I shall certainly come." (BAND, 380)  
  
According to David N. Cisler, eminent scholar of the Norwood Building Inspectors, "these simple interactions should be clear indications of the esteem and affection with which Sherlock Holmes held his friend and long- time companion." (3) Indeed, why would a man such as Holmes accept a partnership from a man who was his inferior? Why would he summon Watson onto cases with him, even after the doctor had ceased to inhabit the rooms at Baker Street? Monsignor Ronald A. Knox sums it up quite well: "Watson is everything to Holmes - his medical advisor, his foil, his confidant, his sympathizer, his biographer, his domestic chaplain." (10) Although Holmes' observations and deductions are nothing short of genius, it is Watson who hones and directs that genius with his own, sometimes erroneous, conclusions.  
  
Faced with such staggering evidence, how is it that most of the public views Dr. Watson as a buffoon, a clown, mere comic relief against the severity of Holmes? The blame can be placed squarely on the glittering shoulders of Hollywood. Prior to the Thirties and Forties, pastichians and spin-off writers treated Watson with a fair amount of respect. However, with the advent of the Sherlock Holmes "B" movies, with Basil Rathbone as the Great Detective and Nigel Bruce as the loyal Doctor, the butchery had begun. Bruce, says Mr. Cisler, is "a bumbling, stuffy old English gentleman who stumbles and huffs and puffs his way around, following Holmes rather like an obedient puppy. it is almost as if Bruce played Watson as the negative stereotype of an Englishman." (7) However, this idea is understandable when the time period is taken into account. In the Thirties and Forties, the movie cinema was a place of escapism, where sorrowing Americans forgot about the Depression and the War while enraptured in some funny episode or tension-wrought film noir drama. The need for humor spawned this pseudo-Watson, funny in his comic idiocy, but regrettably making its mark upon the mindsets of future generations.  
  
Thus, despite the unfortunate wrongdoings on the silver screen, Watson was clearly a man of intelligence and character. His schooling and writing style, as well as the testimony of others, are credible witnesses to exonerate him of the charge of stupidity. After all, as Sherlock Holmes himself says in A Scandal in Bohemia, when Watson wishes to excuse himself from an important interview with a client, "Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell." (SCAN, 274)  
  
Indeed, Mr. Holmes, you would be lost, and so would we.  
  
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Works Cited:  
  
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. Complete Sherlock Holmes. Glasgow: Harper- Collins, 1994. Volume includes:  
  
"A Study in Scarlet" (STUD)  
  
"The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips" (PIPS)  
  
"The Hound of the Baskervilles" (HOUN)  
  
"The Adventure of the Speckled Band" (SPEC)  
  
"A Scandal in Bohemia" (SCAN)  
  
Baring-Gould, William S. "Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street." New York: Bramhall House, 1962  
  
Knox, Mon. Ronald A. "Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes." Orig. pub. 1912 in Blue Book Magazine, now in Diogenes Club Online Library.  
  
Cisler, David N. "Some Observations Upon the Segregation of the Buffoon." Diogenes Club Online Library   
  
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Well, that's it! Hope I get a good grade on it. But even more so, I hope you enjoyed it!  
  
REVIEW!!!!!!!!! 


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